


A Good Friend

by snurtz



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort, Feels, Gen, someone just needs to make Jester feel better okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 02:10:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snurtz/pseuds/snurtz
Summary: Post episode 45: Caleb can't sleep, and he seeks out Jester to make sure she's okay. Just a soft comfort fic because Jester deserves it.





	A Good Friend

Caleb couldn’t sleep.

Nott was sleeping soundly; she had taken quite a beating, and she needed the rest. Caleb didn’t feel great, himself, but despite how terrible he felt, rest would not come to him. For a while he watched Nott breathe, grateful more than anything that she was still alive, breathing, after he had left her the way he did. There was a lot of blood on her clothes. Caleb knew that Caduceus had healed the worst of it, but she had looked pretty rough when she landed back on the ship.

Jester’s face popped into his mind, and a pang hit his heart. _You didn’t know she was there,_ he told himself again. _You couldn’t have known. You could have died._ But his attempt to reassure himself felt hollow. He swallowed and took a deep breath.

Well, he wasn’t going to find sleep with this many thoughts running through his head. He slid off the bunk softly, taking care not to wake his slumbering friend, and stepped out of the room, peering left and right. He could hear the crew above deck; it was only midday, and the rest of them had not fought a dragon today. However, there was no one in the hall. He stepped out and made his way towards Jester’s room.

The door was shut, and Caleb stood by it, hesitating. He knew that Jester was badly hurt as well, and he didn’t want to disturb her sleep, but if she was up, he wanted to see how she was doing. There was so much commotion when they found themselves back on the ship, but he wasn’t so distracted that he had not seen her crying. He leaned in towards the door and listened; the sound of sobbing reached his ears. As his heart sank down into his boots, he lifted a fist to knock, and then hesitated again. He knocked.

There was no reply; only more sobbing from the other side of the door. He knocked again, harder this time. The sound stopped.

“Who’s there?” said Jester’s voice, sounding weak and congested.

“It’s Caleb,” he said. “May I come in?”

There was a moment of silence. “Okay.”

Caleb came into Jester’s room quietly and closed the door behind himself. Jester was lying on her bed, a pillow bunched up in her arms. It was not very bright, but he could see the tearstains on her pillow, and her violet eyes were very pink as she looked at him.

“I… I heard you crying,” he said, feeling awkward. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice wavering. She put on a false smile. “Thank you, Caleb.”

Caleb watched her for a few moments. Her resolve was admirable, but he could see right through it.

“Jester,” he said softly.

Her face crumpled, and she turned back into her pillow. Caleb stepped forward and sat down at the edge of the bed. He rested a hand gently on her shoulder, and she shifted to face him, though she did not meet his eye.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “I thought about my mama and how she’d never see me again…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” said Caleb. “You made it out. And I’m sure we’ll see your mother again.”

“She wouldn’t have known what happened to me.”

“We would have told her,” Caleb said. The instant the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Two tears rolled down Jester’s face, and he squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” he said.

“No, it’s fine,” Jester replied, wiping the tears away with the palm of her hand. She sniffled and fell silent. Caleb furrowed his brow.

“Come here,” he said.

Jester’s eyes darted up to Caleb’s face. “What?” she croaked.

He removed his hand from her shoulder and opened his arms, beckoning her in. “Come here,” he said again. “Come on.”

Immediately Jester pushed herself up and into his arms, wrapping her own around his middle and shoving her face into his shoulder. He held her head gently and started to rub her back as she started sniffling again.

“I’m sorry I left you,” he said. “I didn’t see you. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known you were still there… I would have…” He trailed off. He didn’t know what he would have done.

“No, it’s okay, Caleb, you had to run,” said Jester, her voice muffled slightly by his shirt. “It was really bad, we had to go, you couldn’t think about—about just me…”

“Jester,” Caleb said, pulling back to look at her. She looked back at him with shining eyes. Driven by a sudden impulse, he kissed the top of her head. She took a shuddering breath.

“You are _so_ important to us,” he said, resting his hand on her cheek and looking into her eyes. “All of us. We should _not_ have left you behind.”

Jester nodded slightly, her lower lip trembling. “Okay,” she whispered. Her eyes shifted for a moment. “Nott didn’t leave me, though. And the Traveler was with me, too. But Nott, she—I think she distracted the dragon so I could run. She was really hurt. He bit her _really_ hard.”

“Oh,” said Caleb as Jester dropped her head back into his shoulder. That explained why she had been in such bad shape. Closing his eyes, he pushed away a hundred horrible scenarios that immediately built themselves in his mind. “But she is alive. And so are you.”

“She was very brave,” Jester said into his shirt.

“She always is,” said Caleb fondly.

They sat like that for some minutes as Jester fought to calm herself. Caleb simply held her; he wasn’t sure what else to do. He still was not used to any sort of closeness, especially with anyone other than Nott. But this felt right.

“Can you stay awhile?” asked Jester suddenly.

“Oh,” said Caleb uncomfortably. “Uh, I guess so. If you want me to. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I still don’t feel very good. Maybe you can just stay until I fall asleep?”

“S-sure,” he said, releasing her as she lay back down. He rubbed his hands together and looked around the room. A minute passed. That familiar pit of anxiety was rising in his stomach, but he sat still. Jester’s eyes were already closed.

“You’re a good friend, Caleb,” she said.

 _I’m not_ , he thought immediately. He swallowed those words down, but could not say anything else.

“A really good friend,” said Jester faintly, nestling into her pillow.

“Th-thank you,” he managed to mutter.

It did not take long for Jester to doze off, exhausted as she was, but Caleb’s palms were already sweating. Soon enough, her breathing fell into the familiar pattern of her sleep, and he waited a few more minutes before standing to his feet. He looked down at her; despite the tears on her pillow and the soft hiccups that come with crying one’s self to sleep, a familiar gentle smile rested on her lips now. A wave of warm fondness washed over him. Hopefully she could sleep peacefully now.

“Sleep tight,” he said softly, and then he let himself out.


End file.
